<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Anchors of Mortality by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081963">Anchors of Mortality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds'>lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Constantine (Comic), DCU (Comics), Justice League Dark (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Zatanna (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Dick Grayson, BAMF Zatanna Zatara, Bruce Wayne's C+ Parenting, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Demon Deals, Denial of Feelings, Dick Grayson Needs a Break, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Bad at Feelings, Dick Grayson is Not Okay, Dick Grayson's Guilt Complex, Dick Grayson's Never Ending Need to Save Everyone, Dick Grayson-centric, Donna Troy is So Done, Endgame Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Everyone Here Is Violently Bisexual, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hero Complex, Hurt Dick Grayson, I make the rules and thems be the rules, Jason Todd is Worse at Feelings, M/M, Multi, Multiple Endings, POV Alternating, Past Relationship(s), Pretentious Parallels, References to Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore, Resurrected Jason Todd, Ritual Sex, Romani Dick Grayson, Self-Sacrificing Dick Grayson, Sex Magic, Soul Bond, Survivor Guilt, Threesome - F/M/M, Underworld Unleashed (DC Comics), Where People Just Want Dick To Be Happy, Zatanna Zatara is So Done, he has the self-preservations skills of a horny male preying mantis okay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:20:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You will be condemning a part of your soul to Hell, to my kingdom. The depths of it, in fact. Eternal suffering on a mortal soul, incomprehensible pain and torture, some of which will resonate in your mortal coil. You can not go back on my deals, Richard Grayson, and the pain will be much worse than this. Are you prepared for that? Are you willing to make that sort of sacrifice for the failed Robin?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“He never failed. You have a deal.” </em>
</p><p> *** </p><p>Dick Grayson is no Batman. After Bruce Wayne refuses to resurrect the late Jason Todd, Dick takes matters into his own hands. Armed with the knowledge of a deal that didn’t go through, Dick allies himself with Zatanna and Constantine in a bid to right the wrong that Bruce ignores – even though souls come at a cost. Dick knows he’s strong enough to take the pain to save Jason. But can he stop at Jason? Can he let his fallen friends and family stay dead? Dick is determined to save everyone he can, even if it means losing his soul.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Donna Troy, Dick Grayson &amp; Jason Todd, Dick Grayson &amp; Neron (DCU), Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, John Constantine/Dick Grayson/Zatanna Zatara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Orpheus and Eurydice: (i)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <a href="https://allpoetry.com/poem/14448982-Orpheus-by-Claudia-Eve">Arc One Poem</a>
</p><p>Above is a link to the poem I used as inspiration for the first arc of this story. It’s a beautiful piece I totally think everyone should read!</p><p>Beta credit to the lovely Salvadore, who helped me smooth out a lot of the details and make things more coherent!<br/>
This originally was meant to be a part of the DCU Big Bang but I never had the time to finish it, so I'm putting out stuff now &lt;3</p><p>For the sake of ships, JayDick is central and considered endgame for the primary storyline. However, there will be an “alternate” ending where Dick gets a little love from everyone because I adore my magic trio. But, if Dick/Zee/Constantine is not your thing, it’s a temporary pairing for the sake of ritual sex and friendship.</p><p>In the timeline, arc one exists post-1995's Underworld Unleashed crossover event and pre-Blockbuster arc/Tarantula arc/Death of Donna Troy arc from YJ/Titans: Graduation Day. This story exists in a grey area, but canon events are referenced and presumed to have taken place. It shouldn't require any prior knowledge of the events, but knowing them will help understand Dick's headspace.</p><p>Last thing: I have 20k of this fic prewritten with all of it being planned so updates will be sporadic. I hope you enjoy ❤️</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>ARC ONE: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE</strong>
</p><p>(i) <em>to Persephone’s orchards, to Styx and her womb</em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Life ends and life begins in rain, at least as far as Dick Grayson is concerned. His parents died on a rainy day, ice-cold droplets seeping in through the bright, thick cloth of the circus tents. A drizzle, Haly had called it beforehand, telling them not to worry. But rain is an omen – a warning – of an uncertain future, of conflicting emotions and thoughts. It had been a sign he’d been foolish to ignore, a sign <em>Haly</em> had been foolish to ignore.</p><p>His parents’ funeral took place in the rain, a miserable affair broken only by the rumbling thunder across the horizon. Dick remembers the arcs of bright and furious cracks of lightning dancing across the sky as the rolling booms of thunder seemed to drown the Earth in its sorrow. He’d thought it fitting that the sky should grieve those who knew her best, and should reflect the pain curling in his nine-year-old heart.</p><p>He’d met the Batman in the rain, shaking and soaked in ill-fitting clothes hiding bruises. He’d raged at the vigilante off for stopping him, and making him lose Zucco. Dick had nearly killed Zucco in the rain, weeks after the Batman’s threats, and he’d truly become Robin in that same instance.</p><p>It's fitting that it rains when he sees Jason Todd’s grave – symbolic, even.</p><p>He hasn’t seen the grave before, not even when he’d learned of the boy he’d come to care for’s untimely death. He’d been too angry – too hurt – to risk the trip. He’d broken down in front of other memorials; in front of that lying plaque and glass-encased death suit, and in front of a grieving Alfred. He’d slammed the Joker’s head through a hospital window and rebroke his healing arm, twisting harder and harder as the clown laughed and laughed until the deafening <em>crack</em> broke through the haze of blood-curdling fury. Dick hadn’t visited the quiet grave beneath two willow trees, hadn’t traced the cold letters etched in cold stone.</p><p>He knows the story – a bomb, a crowbar, a laugh that never stopped, and the sudden loss of a child who’d just wanted to be loved – all too well, has every minute detail committed to memory. He’d made Bruce tell it to him through clenched teeth. He’d made Bruce recount every gory detail, every second they’d failed Jason and every second Joker had won. In the aftermath – raw and ugly like exposed nervous tissue with the skin peeled back – Dick had let Bruce take out his anger and grief by forcing that confrontation. Dick made him face that pain, own up to it, and as always he’d shouldered the brunt of that burden. Bruce doesn’t do emotions, but Dick doesn’t deal with bullshit. Not telling him his…successor had died? Had been <em>murdered</em>? Complete bullshit, which is exactly what he informs his ex-mentor.</p><p>Push and pull, that’s where he and Bruce are now. Bruce had hurt Dick, so he’d retaliated the only way he knew how: <em>hurting</em> Bruce, coaxing that guilty conscience to the surface. Bruce calls Jason his soldier to make the loss a logical one – one of a commander – rather than the emotional one it truly is. Batman hadn’t lost his soldier, Bruce Wayne had lost his child. Dick knows this, weaponizes this because Bruce hurt him first and Dick’s always been more ‘eye for an eye’ than blind forgiveness. They’ve never been the picture of functionality, but at this point, pain is all they have left for each other.</p><p>But he’s here now. He’s here because Bruce isn’t, because Bruce is <em>never</em> here when he has a shiny new soldier to break and discard like a used tissue. He’s here because Bruce is wrong, and Dick may not be wearing the scaled panties anymore, but he’ll <em>always</em> call Bruce out when he’s wrong.</p><p>There’s rain – cold, chilling, <em>mind-numbing</em> rain – and there’s grief, a familiar dagger that slips between his ribs and into his heart with cautious familiarity. It’s comforting, in a way: some things change, but pain, <em>this</em> pain, never does. It doesn’t change, because the source of pain doesn’t change. The dead don’t suddenly <em>stop</em> being dead, at least, they aren’t supposed to.</p><p>And that’s where it starts: in the rain, shaking fingers tracing cold letters carved in cold stone. A pain familiar and new; hollowing and burdensome. A father thinking himself a commander. A boy who knew nothing of darkness other than loneliness. A man who wants his family together again.</p><p>There’s a mistake, a lie, and a desperate attempt to fix it.</p><p>He’s heard of Neron from Bruce, heard of the demon’s sly offerings in exchange for an unnamed price, and heard Bruce’s swift dismissal of it.</p><p>“<em>Your lost son, Man of Bats, in exchange for just a teensy favor. ‘Tis a small price for the life of one lost so young, no?”</em></p><p>Dick can imagine the demon’s sharp teeth, forked tongue curled beneath a thin veneer of generosity. It’s how he pictures him, when he thinks of it. When he thinks of what Bruce had turned down.</p><p>Turns out Neron had wanted souls, wanted <em>power</em> he could draw from their suffering and torment, but he’d specifically wanted <em>pure</em> souls. He’d tempted dark souls and gray souls, the crooked and those half-way there, but he’d never before tempted those pure of heart and intention, those who want the world not for <em>themselves</em>, but for others. Purity is something he courts and covets, something he seeks but can’t contain.</p><p>Bruce had been strong enough to turn away, but Dick?</p><p>Dick is no Batman.</p><p>But before that, before the intimate realization of what separates him from Bruce, comes the mistake:</p><p>A familiar mistake, even if it’s a mistake only committed once. Jason’s death – alone, beaten, and bloodied. Jason’s tenure – strained and lonely, pressured, and stringent. <em>Jason</em>.</p><p>That is not to say <em>Jason</em> is the mistake, no, he is the <em>result</em> of mistakes; failings and miscalculations and coldness. He is the result of distance and pedestals, living ghosts and a child in an adult body. Trauma –<em>his</em>, <em>theirs</em> – some of it is learned, some of it is experienced.</p><p>But the mistake snowballs, snowballs into a single moment where <em>no</em> should be <em>yes</em> but it is a no, firm, and unyielding without an inch to give. It’s a no from the Dark Knight of Gotham when the father should want to say yes.</p><p>“No,” Bruce says simply, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “<em>No</em>.”</p><p>He says no to the old and takes in the new. His son-soldier rots in his grave and a lonely boy puts on a suit and calls himself the son-soldier’s moniker, which had been Dick’s moniker first. It continues the tradition of unwanted continuation, Dick supposes, and a lack of consent in who it passes to.</p><p>Bruce trains his new soldier and tells Dick of deals with a devil and unknown consequences. He shows Dick the feed and the choice and that mistake he won’t admit is a mistake, and herein comes the <em>lie</em>, the lie the father left room for.</p><p>“Don’t think about it, Dick. Promise me you’ll leave it alone.”</p><p>“I promise,” Dick lies, but he’s always lied so beautifully that Bruce can no longer see it. He can’t see the minute flicker in blue eyes, that careful twitch of Dick’s right ring finger that gives him away. Bruce doesn’t see it, not that he’s ever been terribly good at reading Dick. Especially after Dick’s split from Gotham and unwilling split from Robin. “I <em>promise</em>.”</p><p>It's in a softer moment he tells Bruce this, one where they ignore the way Bruce knows how Dick’s jaw feels beneath his fists and one where they ignore the way Dick knows how hatred feels tangled in familial love. He lets Bruce have his delusions, lets him maintain his attempts at the right thing as he soldiers another toy. Tim Drake is a child playing war, and Bruce is unstable enough to go along with it.</p><p>“<em>Batman needs a Robin</em>,” the child had said, indignant and desperate. Dick begs to differ. Batman needs a <em>distraction</em>, needs something to balance out the darkness latched onto him. <em>Who</em> it is doesn’t matter, so long as it is someone. Dick. Jason. Tim.</p><p>Bruce can’t save himself so he tries to save someone like him, and like with himself, he always fails.</p><p>He fails, and Dick lies, and so come the reparations; desperate attempts to rectify the mistake that the lie hid, purposeful deceit for the perceived greater good. Selfish, perhaps. Selfless, maybe. Dick doesn’t particularly care for labels, not when it comes to this.</p><p>Caught between the past and the present, he stares and stares at that name that shouldn’t be on a gravestone, soaked by the icy rain as thunder breaks the sky. His skin freezes and his heart burns, and Dick makes a decision. An important one, one he can’t go back on. He’s fueled by wisps of yellow and red and green, bleeding and broken with a torn mask and mocking smile, fueled by afterimages that are silent and solemn, stained and shattered like an old family photo. Jason haunts his dreams, and if he’s tired enough, if Dick’s <em>weak</em> enough, Jason seeps into Dick’s perceptions, imbues his presence and the anchor of guilt that comes with it on to what constructed sane reality Dick tries to maintain.</p><p>Back at the circus, death had been more than pain; more than <em>grief</em>. There’d been rituals, a sort of fear of what happens with the dearly-departed afterward. Burnings and removals, avoiding their name and the memories associated with them.</p><p>“<em>Marimé,</em>” Mary Grayson had explained patiently, “can harm the living, my little Robin. We honor the dead, and we let them be free. That’s the way of our people. Look to the future, not the past, else it might haunt you.”</p><p>He had been taught to fear it;  to fear of malicious dead coming for retribution, for <em>vengeance</em>. Burnings and offerings and smoke and prayer. Careful words, hushed and hidden beneath imagined shrouds on dark days. Dick’s never done well with the lesson of fear; never fully understood it.</p><p>He’s never feared the dead. He’s never feared ghosts and spirits from the beyond, angry or not. He’s never feared shadows and darkness when they call to him, when they protect him, and he calls them home. He doesn’t fear Jason’s specter, standing silent and smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes, doesn’t match the tattered uniform he wears. Dick bears it as he bears all guilt, all responsibilities and pains he can’t share.</p><p>He’s listened to Jason’s voicemails enough times to have them memorized, every overly-cautious word and excited statement burned into his brain. He’d listened to them while Kori held him, crying as he’d grieved the loss. He’d listened to them before he’d confronted Bruce, angrier than he’s ever remembered feeling. He’s listening to them now, letting the quiet drops of rain be broken by a voice he’s never going to hear again.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Little Wing,” he says to the gravestone beneath the willow trees, hugging the phone tight to his chest as Jason watches distantly, every bit as small as he’d been the last time Dick had seen him. “I’m <em>sorry</em>.”</p><p>Jason’s smiling lips twitch like he wants to frown but can’t, and Dick wants to hug him, hold him the way he’d never tried to before. He’s only ever tried touching this Jason once, and when his hand met cold air he learned not to bother trying again. Disappointment is worse than tenuous hope, that small glow in a world so bursting with darkness.</p><p>The rain offers no forgiveness, no absolution of his guilt. It’s not his fault, this he knows, but it <em>feels</em> like his fault, and that’s enough for him. He’s not Bruce, he’s never been like Bruce, and he won’t abandon the old for the new, he won’t trade the past for some faraway future and leave the dead that shouldn’t <em>be</em> dead to rest.</p><p>Robin should have stayed dead, like he’d told Tim, back when the kid had pushed too far, too fast and Dick had ripped the Robin suit from him, ripped <em>Jason’s</em> suit from him (the suit that Dick had given him): “<em>When Jason died, he took Robin with him. And no matter how much anybody may want it, you can’t bring back the dead,” </em>and he’d <em>meant</em> it.</p><p>Bruce never cared for his opinion, and Dick’s almost beyond caring for Bruce’s. On a precipice, knowing what he wants and what is right.</p><p>
  <em>You can’t bring back the dead</em>
</p><p>But you <em>can</em>, if you are flexible enough, if you are bold enough. Bruce would argue that just because you <em>can</em> doesn’t mean you <em>should</em>, but that’s what Dick told him about taking in another soon-to-be child soldier to fight a war on crime, and hey, B ignored him! Reciprocation is healthy for any relationship, even one of ex-mentor and ex-ward.</p><p>Jason Peter Todd should not be dead, so he won’t be. Bruce may accept that failure, but Dick won’t. He <em>won’t</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Orpheus and Eurydice: (ii)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Translation credit to Avari from the Bang server for deciphering the Demonic Enn and translating my English to Latin! Thank you doll!<br/>Beta credit to Salvadore once again!!!!! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>ARC ONE: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>(ii) to the boundaries of Hades with borders assumed</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“This is <em>insane</em>,” Zatanna says one week later, blue eyes wide. They’re in the living room of his dilapidated Blüdhaven apartment. Ancient texts and scrolls surround them, giving the room a scent Dick can only describe as <em>magical. </em>It’s heavy and thick in the air, almost thick enough to taste. Constantine stands next to her impassively, cigarette stuck between his lips. They’d been invited here as part of his plan, the <em>first</em> part of his plan, so long as they agree.</p><p>“Dick, you’ve got to know that no good can come from this! Nothing good ever comes from deals with demons, you can’t <em>trust them</em>! He’s the lord of lies!”</p><p>“Zee—”</p><p>“<em>Don’t you ‘Zee’ me, Richard John Grayson!</em>”</p><p>“Zatanna, I <em>have</em> to do this. I have to bring him back. You haven’t seen Bruce and Alfred, they’re falling apart.”</p><p>He thinks of the untouched cup of tea, cooling on the far end of the island in Wayne Manor’s kitchen. Earl Grey with a dash of cream and three sugar cubes. Jason’s favorite.</p><p>He thinks of the looks on patrol, Bruce’s covert glances back when an enemy does something particularly stupid, as though waiting for someone to fill the silence. Tim is as quiet as Bruce most times, so he offers no quips or comfort, and Dick’s still brimming with the unspoken things between them, still hurt by the faded bruises and soft-spoken lies so he doesn’t try.</p><p>He thinks of the anger and grief, the sadness and pain. Emotionless they may appear, but they’re all unwinding at the seams, even years after Jason’s death. Every stitch they try to make, every torn-open seam they try to repair is colored by the loss of Jason. Like a thread none of them can change, even if they wanted to.</p><p>(He doesn't know that he would want to. Loss is an integral part of who he is now; central, inescapable.)</p><p>Zatanna puts her hands on her hips, blue eyes ice-cold as they stare off.</p><p>“So of course that means it’s time for another reckless ploy by the one and only <em>Man Wonder</em>, right?! Does your martyr complex know no bounds?! Jason’s death wasn’t your fault!”</p><p>Dick shivers, because if he’s <em>stayed</em>, if he’d been <em>around</em>, if, if, if, <em>if</em>….</p><p><em>His</em> suit.</p><p><em>His</em> legacy.</p><p><em>His</em> fault.</p><p>“Jason shouldn’t have <em>died</em>. Not that young, and not that way. If I can fix this then it’s worth a fucking shot.”</p><p>She shakes her head in disbelief.</p><p>“You could <em>die</em>.”</p><p>“Jason already <em>did</em>.”</p><p>Constantine pushes out of his slouch, striding over towards them and pulling Zatanna close.</p><p>“Luv, you have to let ‘im do it.”</p><p>Zatanna’s eyes flash, fists clenched.</p><p>“He could—!”</p><p>“He’ll bloody well do it with or without us. D’you think we’re his last resort?” He snorts, flicking ash to the ground. “Well-connected bloke like him ‘as other paths. This is jus’ the best one at the moment. Right, pretty boy?”</p><p>Dick nods.</p><p>“I’ve looked up the rituals and other pathways to summon the demon-lord Bruce saw. I know his name I just don’t have the power to anchor him as the ritual requires or an understanding of what the ritual requires magically. I’ve tracked down a list of light and dark magic users, and you both happen to be the only trustworthy ones while Raven is off-world.”</p><p>Constantine sends him a look.</p><p>“D’you know the price for a soul pulled from Hell? Are you willing to pay it?”</p><p>All magic has a price, that’s something his mom had impressed upon him. Balance. Order. Chaos thrives in voids where it’s allowed, but magic and nature seek balance.</p><p>“<em>It’s like a tightrope, Dickie</em>,” she’d said, on a cool autumn night in front of roasting marshmallows. “<em>Tilt to the left, you must tilt to the right to stay on. Everything in life has a cost, a price. Nothing comes free, least of all good things. Don’t ask for something if you’re not prepared for the cost. You can’t fly without knowing how to fall</em>, <em>after all</em>.”</p><p>Constantine’s a man who’s been to Hell and told it to kiss his ass. He’s made deals with the Devil and come out unscathed. He’s a survivor; someone who knows how to talk his way out of damn near anything, and that’s half the reason Dick asked for his help along with Zee’s. He can trust Constantine because he <em>knows</em> what it’s like to feel desperate, to feel the drive that leads one to bargain with demons. And more importantly, he won’t stop Dick.</p><p>Dick’s done his research on Neron. He knows what he’d asked of Bruce, what he’d asked of Billy Batson and countless others. A soul for a soul. A life for a life, in effect. But he couldn’t collect a pure soul, not in its entirety if given for selfless reasons. It burns Neron – purity – as harmful as fire to an Atlantian. Dick’s willing to bargain his soul if it’s required, if that’s the price he must pay, but he’s not an idiot. Shards…shards of his soul might be pure, but they won’t be lethal. Neron will ask for his soul in its entirety, and if it’s pure enough he’ll have to settle for fragments.</p><p>“Yes,” Dick says, staring into Constantine’s narrowed eyes. “I’m prepared to pay that price.”</p><p>
  <em>‘Whatever it takes.’</em>
</p><p>Zatanna huffs out a breath, arms crossed.</p><p>“This is insane,” She repeats, “but I don’t trust anyone else to help you do this, and Constantine is right: you’re stubborn enough to do this without me, Boy Idiot. But magic has a cost, and this…the Lord of Lies deals in desires. <em>True</em> desires. And those that rack up the highest cost. It,” she pauses, weighing the words carefully in her mind. “The deals he makes <em>change</em> people, fundamentally. They come out of Hell a different person. You could change. <em>He</em> could change you.”</p><p>“I know. But that’s a risk I’m going to have to take.”</p><p>Constantine nods to himself, taking a long drag and watching the smoke curl around him. Then, he offers Dick a cocky grin.</p><p>“Right then. Let’s summon the ugly bastard, shall we?”</p><p>Zatanna rolls her eyes. “Always so eloquent, Constantine.”</p><p>He sends her a wink. “Only for you, luv.”</p><p>Dick breathes a sigh of relief, straightening. “What’s the first step?”</p><p>Constantine turns to Zatanna, raising a brow expectantly. She rolls her eyes again and pulls off her top hat, muttering something indiscernible into it. A red can reeking of gasoline pops out, and she hands it to Constantine with a grimace.</p><p>“I hate the smell of gasoline,” she tells Dick as Constantine begins to pour it on Dick’s floor. “It’s just…bad memories.”</p><p>Constantine trails the gasoline across the room to a tip, drawing two lines that curl into an upside-down V. He draws another two lines across the semi-triangle that intersect to form an X. Dick stares at it, recognizing the symbol but not knowing from where.</p><p>“First step is always the simplest,” Constantine says, opening his lighter with a flick. He rubs it lightly, grinning as an orange flame pops up and wavers. “We need the tosser’s sigil painted in order to invoke his highness. ‘Course, old Neron doesn’t have a sigil under his name, he has it under the one most blokes know him by: Lucifer. Not that they’re the same person, mind. Old Luce kicked up quite the bloody fuss when humans started calling the sigil his, but it’s stuck. Just a tick and I’ll have it done.”</p><p>Constantine drops the lighter in the tail-end of the gasoline trail, right over the ‘v’ of the sigil. It lights immediately, sparking and surging as the flames race across the room. Smoke fills the room, but it dissipates with a wave and murmur from Zatanna. Dick expects the flames to move from the sigil, to consume the rest of Dick’s hardwood flooring, but they don’t. They burn a bright blue as the sigil glows, and Dick doesn’t need to be a magic-user to feel it in the air and hear the hum.</p><p>“I don’t think I’ll be getting that deposit back,” Dick says dryly, watching Constantine take a long, fortifying drag of a newly-lit cigarette. Constantine blows smoke at him.</p><p>“’S a good thing you’re rich, innit pretty boy?”</p><p>“<em>So</em> not my point here.”</p><p>“Boys, boys, we both know <em>I</em> am the pretty one here, so let’s get to work. John, why the hell didn’t you just use magic?”</p><p>Constantine shrugs, smirking wickedly.</p><p>“Where’s the fun in that?”</p><p> “Okay, now that the sigil’s established we have to construct the pentagram. Five symbols, yadda yadda,” Zatanna pauses, sighing and stepping a tad closer to Constantine. “This is more Constantine’s thing than mine. I don’t need to summon demons to feel…” her nails trail across Constantine’s shoulders, voice dropping to a showman’s whisper on the next word, “…<em>powerful</em>.”</p><p>Dick chokes on a laugh, turning it into an awkward sort of cough when Constantine shoots him a look.</p><p>“Git. I’ll use my blade for this, since Neron’s an airhead I’m sure that element will do the trick.”</p><p>Constantine pulls a sword from an inner pocket in his tan trench coat. It gleams a glowing silver, only brightened by the roaring flames just in front of it. Dick wonders if it’s the sigil’s magic or Constantine’s keeping the flames from spreading. He wonders if the sigil will be permanently burned into his poor floor.</p><p>Zatanna taps her foot impatiently as Constantine lifts the blade.</p><p>“Earth,” he says, raising the blade upwards in a sharp, cutting motion. “Water,” he makes another cutting motion, drawing it back towards him after a second point. “Air.” a horizontal slice this time. “Fire,” upwards again.</p><p>By the time Constantine says, “Spirit,” Dick can see the glowing pentagram pointing towards the ground.</p><p>It hums with life, giving a sort of energy he recognizes from short-lived battles with sorcerers during his stint leading the Justice League. Reminds him a bit of Etrigan, Jason Blood’s slightly less charming other half (not that his normal half is particularly charming).</p><p>“<em>Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron,”</em> Constantine chants after a breath, twisting his hands towards the pentagram. “<em>Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron.”</em> The pentagram gives another low hum before slamming into the ground, glowing a violent shade of red as it merges with the sigil.</p><p>“Right,” Constantine says, and shares a look with Zatanna. “Sins sacrifice <em>might</em> be necessary for this bloke. Been a while since I’ve had to summon a bugger this resistant to it without a sodding conduit.”</p><p>“Condu-what? Those black candle things he gave out to the villains?”</p><p>Constantine nods.</p><p>“That’s the one. Don’t reckon you’ve got one on you? Or know someone who does?”</p><p>Dick shakes his head.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>. Didn’t think so. Well, Neron might be a bit ticked we don’t have an invitation. Demons like him prefer the advantage, so they give out candles that work like a homing beacon. Sends you to Hell or brings him to you. Since we don’t have that, we have to pay the…<em>entrance</em> fee to Hell, for lack of better phrasing.”</p><p>Zatanna nudges Dick.</p><p>“It’s not as ominous as it might sound. It’s more like a ritual sacrifice, without the death. You know the seven deadly sins, right?”</p><p>Dick arches a brow, but nods.</p><p>“Well, the thing about magic is it likes <em>threes</em>. Hell’s entrance fee is pretty well known – the seven deadly sins – but since we aren’t actually <em>trying</em> to end up as souls damned for an eternity, we just need a demonstration of three sins. We can act as casters and you act as the conduit since you’re the only one who actually needs to <em>go</em> to Hell. One demonstration to anchor you to us, and then two sins you have to perform to gain entry.”</p><p>“A demonstration? What do you mean?”</p><p>Constantine leers at Dick, and Zatanna blushes furiously and stares at the ground.</p><p>“Fancy a shag, Grayson? I’ve heard you know your way around a cock.”</p><p>Zatanna hits him upside the head, stomping the cigarette under her heel when he drops it.</p><p>“That is <em>not</em> how you explain something!”</p><p>Constantine rolls his eyes, lighting a new cigarette under her glare.</p><p>“I’m so <em>sorry</em>,” he drawls sarcastically, turning to Dick, “you see, when two good-looking blokes and one sexy bird have to go to <em>Hell</em>—”</p><p>“<em>Not</em> what I meant!”</p><p>“Zee, face it – we <em>all</em> have to shag to pass forward. Simplest sin, and the most bloody enjoyable. Can’t say I haven’t thought of shagging Pretty Boy before, and I know <em>you</em> have thought of it.”</p><p>Dick winces, feeling a flare of resentment at their familiar banter. It’s still hard to believe he and Kori are over – for <em>good</em> this time – when they’d been everything to each other mere months ago. But so much had come to stand between them, things they couldn’t drown out with their lovemaking or soft admiration. The wedding – seeing Kori walk down the aisle to another man – Raven – making love to someone else, <em>kissing</em> someone else – and Mirage – feeling <em>violated</em> and unable to say that because <em>Kori</em> had been so hurt – and everything else in between until there hadn’t been a trace of that trust that had been so fundamental to their relationship.</p><p>“<em>Do you love me?”</em> Kori had asked him just a week before, green eyes wide and vulnerable. Kori’s always been expressive, and that had just made her vulnerability all the more painful to see. “<em>In the way that means <strong>forever</strong>? In a way that we <strong>never</strong> have to find <strong>excuses</strong>?”</em></p><p>He’d said no, and he’d had to watch her heart shatter like glass in his destructive hands as he wondered what the <em>hell</em> is wrong with him. He loves Kori, will <em>always</em> love Kori, but she’s not his everything anymore.</p><p>She can’t be. Not when he’s terrified she’ll one day kill someone and he’ll have to choose between his morals and his love, not when she’s still hurt over Mirage and he can’t talk about it because Roy’s jeering shouts of “<em>cheater!”</em> and “<em>whore</em>!” stuck with him. He hadn’t been able to talk to Kori about that. He hadn’t been able to talk to her about Raven unknowingly taking advantage of him being all the worse because Miriam had taken advantage first, because he’d somehow made them feel that he’d be okay with that, that he’s the kind of person who <em>sleeps around</em> on his girlfriend, on his one-time <em>fiancé</em>…</p><p>He shakes off the reverie, pushing it down and thinking of <em>Jason</em>, promises made before willow trees and a haunting memory made more of guilt than anything else.</p><p>“Considering it’s <em>my</em> ass on the line,” Dick interjects, “do I at least get a say?”</p><p>Constantine smirks.</p><p>“Don’t feel like getting buggered, you can bugger me. It doesn’t matter <em>who</em> does <em>what</em>, only that it’s done.”</p><p>“I never pegged you for a bottom,” Dick says with a teasing grin. “You’ve always seemed pretty…”</p><p>“Dominating? Commanding?”</p><p>Zee snorts.</p><p>“Worshipful, I was going to say.” Dick tilts his head to Zatanna. “You’ve always been very in awe of her, so I wouldn’t have guessed you would bottom.”</p><p>Constantine shrugs, wrapping an arm around Zee’s waist.</p><p>“We’re both up for it ‘round the clock, luv. I like gettin’ in her knickers just as much as she likes getting’ in mine. ‘Sides, it’s just a different <em>type</em> of worship.”</p><p>Zatanna presses a kiss to his cheek when he pulls away moving towards Dick with something heated in his gaze.</p><p>“Pleasure is pleasure, no matter where you pull it from. It can be worship if you want it to be, from either side of it. I’d enjoy worshipping you, luv,” his voice deepens, thick and heady like whiskey. It warms Dick, sparks of heat curling in his gut. “You’d taste <em>delectable</em>.”</p><p>Zatanna doesn’t look upset by Constantine’s proclamation – on the contrary, she looks like she <em>agrees</em> – but he asks, for his own sake if no one else’s.</p><p>“And you’re both okay with that?” Dick.</p><p>Zee and Constantine look at each other and shrug.</p><p>“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Zatanna says with a breathy laugh.</p><p>“<em>What</em>?”</p><p>“Makes sex a bit more exciting,” Constantine adds. “Bit of spice to the occasional romp, and all that.”</p><p>“But you—” Dick looks between them helplessly, “—me?”</p><p>He’s not unused to being desired, to having the attention of men and women alike, but it’s another thing to be propositioned by friends.</p><p>Constantine slides to his right, touch exploratory as he smooths over his jacket and down to the small of his back.</p><p>“It’s the ass, luv. That and the eyes.”</p><p>Zatanna hums her agreement, letting her gaze drift over Dick’s body shamelessly as she sets herself in front of him. They’re eye to eye, and she’s all he can see. Zee’s smile is soft as she reaches for him. Heated yet comforting.</p><p>“We won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with,” she reassures, her touch just as careful as Constantine’s. Dick feels some of the tension leave him as their hands caress him. “And we don’t <em>have</em> to have sex. Despite what John says, there are other things we can do sin-wise, it’s just the easiest one.”</p><p>Dick sighs, running a hand through his hair. It’s not like he’s <em>only</em> had sex with Kori, even if he hasn’t had sex since their most recent break-up. There’d been a few times with Roy – quick and dirty in back alleys and shitty hotels – and that one time with Jericho – soft, and gentler than he’d thought it would be. It’s not like Kori’s been his <em>only</em>, she’d just been his only one for so long…</p><p>But…they’re over. For good. They’d agreed, because they can’t keep jumping from <em>everything</em> to <em>just friends</em> and have it not hurt. They can’t be lovers, and they’re trying to be friends now, which means moving on. Which means sex with other people. And as far as partners go, Zatanna and Constantine are hot as hell.</p><p>His eyes rake over Zatanna’s dark curls and red lips, her soft curves and silken skin peeking through the black allure of her fishnets. Her uniform is tight enough that she might as well be nude, and he’s always known she’s stunning the same way he knows Gotham smells like sewage in the spring. It’s a fact, one that sends warmth spiraling like fireworks downwards. He imagines her thighs around his waist, imagines delving into her tight heat as her nails scratch open his back. He takes a breath, turning towards Constantine.</p><p>When he looks at Constantine, he traces the corded muscle of his shoulders, the faint scars visible along his neck and wrists from dark magic past. Constantine’s build is wiry but strong, not overly showy but pleasing nonetheless. He’s lean and compact, and Dick’s pretty sure Constantine could hold him down or pick him up if he so desired. He likes the idea of that, like partners as strong as him if not <em>stronger</em>.</p><p>“Yes,” he whispers, watching Constantine’s tongue wet his smirking mouth, watching the red blush light up Zatanna’s cheeks again, and feeling it resound through him in another surge of heat that goes straight to his groin. “God, <em>yes</em>.”</p><p>Zatanna only hesitates for a moment, waiting for her blush to die down before marching over to Dick and slotting her mouth against his like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like it’s simple. Because it <em>is</em> simple. Dick’s just…forgotten that. He moves his lips against Zatanna’s hesitantly at first, letting her pull him closer and taking comfort in her taste as Constantine watches. She tastes like mint and strawberries, and he loses himself in the warmth of her mouth, in the feeling of her tongue gliding over his…</p><p>“Bloody hell,” he hears muttered, feeling a kiss of warm air greet his bare neck as his heart thunders in his chest. “<em>Christ</em>.”</p><p>Constantine drops the cigarette to the ground– willingly, this time – as Zee lets out a small gasp and presses another kiss to Dick’s mouth. Light, teasing, but it’s enough that he’s burning, aching, and it’s only the start. It’s been months, after all. Constantine presses himself flat against Dick’s back, close enough that Dick can feel his arousal through the skin-tight jeans as the blond’s breath ghosts over his neck.</p><p>“You trying to kill me?” He asks Constantine, laughing a bit as Zee’s fingers tease his zipper.</p><p>Constantine grins, pressing a wet kiss against Dick’s neck. “Maybe.”</p><p>“Or maybe we’re just too much for you, Boy Wonder,” Zatanna teases, pulling him in for another kiss before he can protest. He melts into it, shivering slightly as Constantine bites down. Zatanna’s hands fist in his shirt to hold him closer, and Constantine trails a burning path up his neck that makes it almost impossible to focus, almost impossible to do <em>anything</em> – but Dick likes to think he’s good at multitasking.</p><p>He snakes a hand up to hold Constantine at his neck and begins to unbutton Zee’s shirt with his free hand. Dick struggles with the top one, so Constantine reaches over and tugs it loose. He kisses Zatanna’s smiling mouth slowly, savoring each careful brush of lips until she pulls away and trades places with Constantine. He tastes about like Dick would’ve guessed – cigarettes (a pack or two’s worth) and cheap bourbon – and feels softer than Dick would’ve thought. Smooth lips and a sinfully wicked tongue, the hum of magic and cool breeze as their clothes disappear are distant things – irrelevant things – compared to the hands trailing down his chest, tugging on his hips.</p><p>Dick lets himself be manhandled backward – Zatanna dragging him by the wrist and Constantine at his front, greedy tongue taking everything Dick has to offer. Dick breaks away to give a nervous laugh and hardly feeling the burn as they cross the fire barrier of the sigil. It feels more like an inferno than a controlled blaze – everything seems hazy, spiraling further and further out of his control as they consume him. He feels good, feels <em>beyond </em>good. This is lust – pure, unbridled, lust – and he can feel it with every stroke and every heady kiss. There’s no pain here, no half-truths or unspoken tension. It’s fun…</p><p>Sex hasn’t been <em>fun</em> in so long.</p><p>“Gorgeous,” Constantine mutters, lightly fisting a hand in Dick’s hair. “Absolutely stunning.”</p><p>Dick moans, making Constantine’s grip tighten. Zatanna’s breasts are soft against his back, and he presses into her as her thumb brushes over his entrance, tracing the curve of his ass.</p><p>“You gonna be good for us, Boy Wonder?” she purrs in his ear, and it makes him shiver. “Are you going to let us fuck you?”</p><p>Constantine’s mouth drifts downwards with a purpose, biting and licking and kissing every inch of skin he can on the way. Dick bites his lip to hold in his groan, feeling his cock spring to life from the overwhelming sensations.</p><p>“Yes,” He manages, gasping a little as Zatanna’s finger teases his entrance once more. “<em>Yes</em>.”</p><p>Constantine drops to his knees in front of Dick, lips swollen and red enough that Dick aches for more. Aches to know what <em>else</em> Constantine’s mouth is good for. It starts with a simple hand, gentle strokes, and Zatanna’s still teasing too, but it’s not enough. Dick’s out of his mind with lust, something that’s so foreign he doesn’t know what to do with it. The flames around them glow orange against their naked bodies and the sigil’s magic leaves an electric feeling to the air, to the areas their skin touch.</p><p>Dick pulls on Constantine with a low whine, keening as the blond drags a thumb over his slit roughly.</p><p>“D’you want more, pretty boy? D’you want me to suck your cock?”</p><p>Another whine.</p><p>“Use your manners, gorgeous, I know you have them. Beg me. I bet you’ll do it brilliantly.”</p><p>Blood rushes to Dick’s cheeks, and Zee’s hand snakes between his legs to play with his balls. He hisses, which makes Constantine smirk wickedly.</p><p>“Come on,” Constantine whispers, breath warm against his thigh. He kisses it lightly, pumping Dick’s cock a few times. “<em>Beg</em>.”</p><p>“<em>Please</em>,” Dick pants out, “Constantine, <em>please blow me already</em>.”</p><p>Constantine’s mouth takes him inch by inch, and it’s <em>scorching</em> and <em>wet</em> and holy <em>fuck</em> Dick’s having to think of everything from Alfred in a bikini to the Joker to keep himself from coming down Constantine’s throat. The blond knows what he’s doing, and he hates to admit it but it’s one of the best he’s ever had. Constantine’s tongue swirls the head of Dick’s cock, and his hand replaces Zatanna’s on Dick’s balls. He drags his tongue along the underside of it as he swallows, teeth dragging just enough to hurt but not enough to stop. It’s wet, and messy, and the more groans and helpless moans escape Dick the faster Constantine goes – the <em>deeper</em> he takes Dick. It’s wet, and messy, and everything Dick never knew he wanted.</p><p>“<em>Yessss…”</em></p><p>Zatanna makes herself known at Dick’s entrance, face between his cheeks as she drags her tongue along the rim. It’s filthy, downright dirty, something he’d never done with even <em>Kori</em> but fuck… “<em>Fuck</em>…” She takes this as a cue, and swirls her tongue around him, wetting it before thrusting in.</p><p>“Fuck!”</p><p>He nearly comes, but Constantine’s hand squeezes him tight and he <em>can’t</em>. Even as he thrusts back into Constantine’s mouth, even as Zatanna’s tongue darts in and out of him and she nibbles lightly, he <em>can’t fucking come</em>.</p><p>“Constantine!” Dick protests, and the man in question releases Dick’s cock with a loud <em>pop</em>. “Let me come!”</p><p>“I don’t bloody think so. Not before you fuck me, Grayson.”</p><p>Zatanna hums, pulling away and pushing a finger into him in place of her tongue.</p><p>“Magic, Dick. We all come together, and I get to fuck you while you fuck Constantine. It’s part of the ritual to align our souls, so John and I can act as anchors for you on Earth while you’re in Hell.”</p><p>Dick groans, feeling himself stretch as Zatanna inserts another finger and scissors him open.</p><p>“How…how are you going to fuck me?”</p><p>Zatanna presses a grinning kiss into the crook of his neck.</p><p>“Like <em>this</em>: evig em a kcid!”</p><p>“Okay,” Dick breathes out, “dumb question. Is that your motto? When in doubt, magic out?”</p><p>“I don’t want to hear it, Mister Utility Belt.”</p><p>“Well,” he says, a bit breathless as he watches Constantine prep himself with conjured lube. “You can take the bat out of Gotham, but you can’t take the Gotham out of the bat. Preparedness is…important?”</p><p>Zatanna’s smirk is blinding.</p><p>“Such a boy scout,” she purrs, spanking his ass lightly and smoothing a hand over the curve of it admiringly. Her other hand is on her cock, stroking the purple member to hardness. Dick’s already painfully hard cock bobs pitifully, leaking a few more drops of precome in protest. “Shall we test how prepared you truly are?”</p><p>Dick wets his lips with a quick dart of his tongue, Zee and Constantine both track the movement eagerly. Dick’s nervous, but their interest and the tension thick in the air makes it easier. He feels…desirable, which is something he hasn’t felt for a while.</p><p>“I’m ready,” he murmurs. Zee’s smirk softens to a smile, and she leans over his shoulder to press a light kiss on his lips</p><p>“You ready, babe?” she calls to Constantine, who’s three fingers deep in himself and groaning.</p><p>“Give us a sec, luv, ‘m almost there—”</p><p>Dick reaches around Constantine’s back to grip his cock roughly, squeezing just hard enough to have the desired effect. Constantine glares at him.</p><p>“Tosser.”</p><p>“Karma!”</p><p>Dick drags his nails across the length teasingly, satisfied by the guttural moan Constantine lets out seemingly against his will.</p><p>“I’ll take that as a yes,” Zee says smugly, before shoving herself in Dick with one strong thrust.</p><p>There’s a surge of something unrecognizable in his gut, the scent of blackberry vanilla surging forth as Zatanna feels him out with experimental thrusts, slow and languid. Her black curls tickle his back, and he can feel her red lips bite marks into his skin. Zatanna’s cock gives it’s own mechanical hum, reverberating throughout Dick’s body, pleasurable in a way he hasn’t experienced before. She pants as she fucks him, the act just as much about his pleasure as hers, and he’s enraptured by the sight, but her red, puffy lips curled around an ‘o’, eyes sparkling, skin glowing against his. He’s consumed by the debauchery, delicious and seductive.</p><p>He waits until they have a rhythm, until he sees Zatanna’s blue eyes darken to a pretty shade of violet, pale fingers enveloped in glowing smoke flowing from her to him, before feeling Constantine out.</p><p>Dick’s careful, fingers light as they probe at the entrance to ensure there’s enough room for his cock. Constantine bites back a groan, back arched and throat barred to Dick.</p><p>Dick rewards him with a kiss, tongue sliding against the blond’s as he aligns himself with Constantine’s entrance. He can taste Zatanna there, and he wonders briefly if Zatanna had tasted <em>Dick</em> there. It’s Zee that pushes him in, her magic curling around his waist and groin, trailing his skin like the caress of night air, and moving on to Constantine. She rocks against Dick, rocking them together until Dick and Constantine are both groaning, hearts aligning, beating as one.</p><p>Constantine’s magic intertwines with Zatanna’s, gold-laced with purple, sparking and glowing against their skin. It’s a soft burn, comforting, and it fills Dick with a different sort of heat. He feels no fear, only trust. Despite all of this being pretty far out of his range of expertise and control, he feels safe. Powerful. <em>Good</em>.</p><p>He feels even better as Zatanna’s lips trail up his neck, teasing and sucking and biting, and Constantine gasps into his mouth as Dick wraps a hand around his cock, strokes playful and rolling. It’s natural, drawing the sounds out, feeling skin warm and slick against his own, feeling Zee spread him apart and feeling Constantine’s tight heat wrap around him like a glove. It feels all too natural for something so unusual, especially as the sigil hums beneath them, as the magic glows, as Zatanna’s soft pants warm his ear, and Constantine fucks himself back on Dick.</p><p>His skin burns where Zee’s mouth lingers, burns where Constantine presses himself against, and desire doesn’t pool in his gut so much as it consumes him.</p><p>“Together,” Zee purrs in his ear, voice molten heat and shaky desire, eyes still purple when he glances at her. Constantine’s tense against him, eyes squeezed shut, and some of the sigil’s marks have imprinted on his skin. A red burnt in, trailing sparks leaving it. Dick’s sure it’s on his skin too, and Zee’s.</p><p>Zee buries her magic cock deep, dragging it in and out perfectly, enough to make a moan slip past his lips, and when he rocks with her, resuming his pace in Constantine, Constantine keens, trembling beneath him. They’re all close, he can feel the edge of their desires as surely as his own. Aligned. Together.</p><p>“One,” she says, breasts soft against his back, heart beating in her touch to the same tempo as Dick’s.</p><p>“Two,” she says, wrapping a hand around Dick’s waist, fingers teasing Constantine’s skin. Dick can feel Constantine’s heart join theirs in unison, as one.</p><p>“Three.”</p><p><em>Lust</em>.</p><p>They come as one, a pile of sweaty-skin and shallow pants and come sticky against their magic painted skin. Something clicks in place, aligns, as Constantine laces his fingers with Dick and Zee laces her fingers with both of them. Something unspoken, but perfect. Right.</p><p>“You’re giving me a magic kink,” Dick mutters mutinously. “It’s completely unfair.”</p><p>“Part of our wicked plan,” Constantine replies with a wink. “Get you hooked on magical shagging so we can keep you.”</p><p>Zee presses an affectionate peck to Constantine’s mouth.</p><p>“He’s not wrong.”</p><p>Dick snorts. At least they’re honest.</p><p>“So there are three sins I have to do, right? What’s next?”</p><p>Zee sighs, stretching her bare legs across Constantine’s lap with a pointed look. He rolls his eyes, but rubs at her calves, kneading expertly, like he’s done this before. Dick smiles at their domesticity, even though the bitter tang lingers in his afterglow.</p><p>“There’s pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, and obviously we’ve already done lust,” She eyes the hickeys she’d kissed into his skin with a smirk, “so you pick two others to ‘demonstrate’.”</p><p>Constantine nods.</p><p>“It can be a verbal or physical demonstration. Whatever feels right in the moment, when you think of that sin. Zee, be a luv and hop off.”</p><p>She kicks off him and crosses her legs carefully, unconcerned with her nudity. She looks every bit as comfortable with the candlelight on her bare skin as she does on stage in fishnets and heels. It’s stunning to see that kind of confidence. It reminds him of Donna, in a way.</p><p>“What would I have to do for wrath?”</p><p>The fire glints in Constantine’s eyes, a danger and a warning, ghosts lingering in pools of russet brown, tendrils of haunted gold streamed through the pupils and cornea that captivate Dick. Constantine’s fingers itch for a cigarette, twitching as his skin burns with magic, but he resists.</p><p>“What do you think of when you think of wrath?”</p><p>“Me,” Dick says softly, feeling the familiar flicker of self-hatred, of blame and guilt and anger churning deep within. “Bruce.”</p><p> Constantine snorts.</p><p>“Daddy issues?”</p><p>“I <em>did</em> just fuck you,” Dick pauses and lets himself grin. “So probably.”</p><p>The blond slides up to him at that, fingers curled lightly around his bare waist, thumb skimming over the scars there – faint and silver.</p><p>“Shoulda let me know, luv. ‘M always down for a good rough and tumble with a sweet baby boy—”</p><p>“Yeah,” Dick interrupts, “not into it.”</p><p>Constantine shrugs, at which Zee giggles.</p><p>“A bloke can dream. As for wrath, what do you <em>see</em> when you picture it? Focus on you, and how it looks to you.”</p><p>Dick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, warmed by the faint awareness of Zee and Constantine, the flames smoldering in the sigil beneath them, the aura of magic around him. It’s not suffocating like some magic, it’s warm. Like sunlight. Like a campfire.</p><p>Wrath…<em>wrath</em>.</p><p>It’s abstract, but he thinks of red. The red of his Robin suit, torn and dirtied by Bruce. Taken apart by Dent, cold and alone and <em>furious</em> and scared. Taken apart by Joker, embarrassed and bitter and terrified and <em>enraged</em>. The red of Bruce’s mouth, ripped and leaking by Dick’s hands, by Dick’s words. The red of Jason’s corpse, crushed and shattered by the warehouse and the bomb and the crowbar.</p><p>He thinks of the way blood paints alley walls late at night, the way it paints the skin black in the moonlight. He sees it curl around him in dark ribbons, the metallic coppery taste lingering on his tongue, thick and heady in the air. He sees it in stripes and rivets, bleeding down carelessly across his skin. Smearing, messy, <em>karma</em>.</p><p>“Do you have a knife?”</p><p>Zatanna mutters something under her breath and a blade appears in her hand, gleaming silver with a marble handle that looks austere and pristine, a variegated white that shines when it twists. She presses it into his hand with a wary glance, like she can see the rage burning under his skin, waiting to be released. She’s right to be wary, the emotion feels overwhelming, suddenly, as his fingers grip the smooth handle lovingly – hatefully – as images and voices and thoughts and hurt bleeds into his skin, itchy just beneath the surface, burning and begging to be let out.</p><p>It’s intense, overwhelming, and he’s lost in a sea of repression fleeing the cage he’d expertly constructed. All the anger and pain and just plain <em>hate</em> leaks out, bit by bit, and so he follows his instincts and draws a line across his arm with just the tip of the blade. It cuts through the skin like paper, and he bleeds into the air and drips on the sigil, feeling the act and scent of coppery relief in the air rewarded with a hum. Pulling it off his skin is torturous, and for a moment (<em>just a moment</em>) he wants to continue its journey, to pull it across his biceps and chest, up to the sensitive skin around his neck.</p><p><em>Wrath</em>.</p><p>For a moment, the blade shakes, and his hands follow his instincts before Zatanna grips his hand with a soft look. “That’s more than enough,” she murmurs, mumbling something after it and healing him with a snap of her fingers and pulling the tenuous tendrils of residual absconded emotion from him with the blood. He takes a great, heaving sigh, feeling dizzy and unsteady as Zee’s touch anchors him.</p><p>Even as he calms, she doesn’t let go, and he can’t bring himself to break the contact either.</p><p>“Two down, one to go,” Constantine says evenly, clearly pretending to not understand what Dick’s chosen show of wrath means. His eyes tell Dick the truth, even though Dick doesn’t want to see it.</p><p>He shuts his eyes again, feeling the eyes burn holes in his skin, itching like ants as they crawl and drag and smooth over him carefully, absently. Zee gives his hand another squeeze, and he uses that to drown out all other sensations and focus.</p><p>Of his sins, lust and wrath are obvious. He likes the pleasures of flesh, communication in the slickened glide of skin against skin, lips against his, affirmation in ways beyond words. Silent, understanding, and easy. He has a temper, carefully balanced at a low pressure beneath his skin, buried deep enough for traces to leak out occasionally, in circumstances, but otherwise stays concealed and safe beyond feeling. Picking another sin is harder.</p><p>Dick’s never been greedy really, never jealously hoarded wealth or resources or people. He maintains a balance, lets his loved ones in and out as they desire, rarely pushing when they don’t. He’s not gluttonous, his indulgences never superseded his priorities. He works himself to the bone, so sloth is out the window. He has his pride, but he always pushes it aside to reach a compromise, almost always lets Bruce run over his pride and forgive without ever receiving an apology. Envy, though…</p><p>Envy bites and stings like a cold metal blade against his throat, cutting and severing in its severity. Envy colors the distant memories of cold legs and warm smiles, a black cape draped over his shoulders and fond hand mussing up his hair. Envy colors the leotard in red and yellow and green, a tangible string linking his past to his present, his new home to his old – both found, both taken without any apology. Envy colors the specter of Jason Todd, who came into Dick’s place and got everything Dick had created immediately, without painstaking wall-breaking and bonding, without suffering the silent nights and cold, empty halls.</p><p>He loves Jason, but death has lessened the sting his memory has always invoked, the aftertaste of resentment, churning and sullen deep in his gut, the aftertaste of doubt, questions of his own importance and whether or not Bruce had ever really cared (one adopted immediately and one kept and released after years and years without so much as a scrap of paperwork tying them together. Dick doesn’t have to know Bruce to know what that means). Death has weakened it, but never erased it entirely. It still sits where it always has, just beneath his tongue, boiled and brisk and bitter, and it escapes as acrid confessions the second he opens his eyes.</p><p>“I hate that Bruce replaced me the second I was weak,” he breathes out, trembling. “I hate that Bruce gave away my name and costume like it was his to give away, like it represented nothing more beyond Batman’s sidekick and didn’t exist outside of him, <em>beyond</em> him.”</p><p>It burns in his chest, pressing down on his lungs hard enough to restrict breathing. He chokes on the bitterness, breathing uneven ragged gasps as he takes greedy gulps of air.</p><p>“I hate that Jason got everything I worked my ass off for in a matter of moments, that he got the security of Bruce’s affection and taken in <em>permanently</em> when I was cast aside like old news and all but forgotten. I hate that—” Dick sighs. “—I hate that Bruce was a father to Jason right off the bat when I had to nearly die to get that.”</p><p><em>Envy</em>.</p><p>The sigil flashes, a flare of blinding light that makes Constantine hiss. He can feel the magic clearly now, wrapped like chains around his skin, invisible to all but his skin. It’s comforting in a way, he can feel bits and pieces of Zee and Constantine mixed into it, intertwined protectively, beautifully, with the essence of his sin and offerings to Hell and beyond.</p><p>“<em>sehtolc no,</em>” she murmurs, ever soft and sweet as she releases him, steps back with eyes full of sympathy and lips tight in a frown.</p><p>There’s a rush of warmth as Zatanna’s magic smooths over his skin, replacing the clothes she’d vanished before. There’s quiet as the flames flicker and his blood trails down his forearm to bead at his fingertips. Then, there’s a low hum as the sigil glows. Zatanna’s arms are enveloped in glowing purple bands tying her to Dick, and Constantine’s fingers burn gold where they touch the sigil.</p><p>“<em>Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron. Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron.”</em></p><p>The flames dance up Dick’s arms, burning so hot it’s <em>painful</em>, and he screams and screams but they don’t stop, they keep chanting.</p><p>There’s a flash of white, and a sting right over his heart, and then he’s gone.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The “Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron. Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Neron” bit is something I found from a "real" black magic sight that's based around summoning Lucifer. I just swapped Lucifer for Neron, because I'm lazy, and it's in a language known as Demonic Enn and means something like "You are here to call Neron"<br/></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Orpheus and Eurydice: (iii)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Beta credit (again) to the wonderful Salvadore + translation credit to Avari for the Demonic Enn + Latin!!! &lt;3</p>
<p>Hope you guys enjoy! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>ARC ONE: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE</strong>
</p>
<p>(iii) <em>barricaded in linen, my breath and my bride</em></p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Hell is supposed to be hot, but to Dick it’s cold. Numbing, even. Columns of black smoke erupt around him, steaming and smoking as they spiral into the blood-red horizon. He’s in a room – a throne room, from the looks of it – that’s as black as the night sky over Gotham. Miles of gleaming, seamless obsidian in every direction only broken by the blindingly bright golden throne, and the pristine white pit in front of it.</p>
<p>It’s freezing, that tingling kind of frozen you get swimming in Gotham Bay near Christmas when Killer Croc’s being particularly difficult and Bruce doesn’t feel like swimming. Dick wonders if it’s meant to mimic memory – the most uncomfortable sensation for each person that enters. It would explain why Hell burns a bright black and red but feels like an Arctic winter without thermals.</p>
<p>If he stares at anything for too long it hazes, becoming distant and fuzzy like a low-resolution video. Red, yellow, and green blur at the edges of his vision, evanescent when he looks at the myriad of person-fragments tattered and haunting. Not for much longer, he hopes. Jason won’t be cold for much longer, abandoned to his fate and torn apart under the Joker’s designs as Bruce had left him.</p>
<p>“So,” Constantine says, startling Dick. “Neron’s switched things up since the last time I had to see his miserable mug.”</p>
<p>Constantine’s back in his regular gear, purpling bruises just above the collar of his tan coat. Dick can’t remember if it had been him or Zatanna that had put them there.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you supposed to be helping Zee with the anchoring?”</p>
<p>Constantine shrugs, pulling a cigarette out and brushing it against the black wall. It catches fire effortlessly.</p>
<p>“She’s a damn powerhouse, Zee is. Figured you’d need back-up, make sure you don’t fuck yourself over with a bad deal. I know how demons work.”</p>
<p>Dick nods.</p>
<p>“Where is—”</p>
<p>“Richard John Grayson,” a voice behind him drawls. “Curious of you to drop by.”</p>
<p>Dick spins to look at the owner of the drawling voice, and it takes him a minute to register what he’s seeing. At first, the figure seems tall and looming, glowing green eyes and a long mane of tangled red curls. He thinks it’s Kori, because of the way her figure leans, the curves he’s tasted with his tongue, and the luminous inhuman sheen her skin has, but the hair changes as soon as he looks at it. It shortens, darkening and curling inwards rather than outwards as it recedes and tangles further. Her skin pales, adopting silvery scars the longer he stares, and losing the golden glow for a more green one. She shrinks, and her curves disappear, and the eyes he’s staring into are a cold obsidian rather than a warm green. They glow all the same; a dangerous, threatening gleam he can’t help but be drawn into. The not-Kori looks…she looks…</p>
<p>Well, she looks a hell of a lot like Jason.</p>
<p>A lot like Jason <em>would</em> look, if he’d died at eighteen rather than fifteen.</p>
<p>Constantine stiffens next to him.</p>
<p>“Interesting,” Jason says, lips curled in a cruel smile as he examines himself. “<em>Very </em>interesting, Richard Grayson. I admit, you have me intrigued.”</p>
<p>“Who are you?” Dick asks, heart in his throat. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>Not-Jason lounges across the golden throne, crown tilted carelessly on his head as though it’s meaningless, boring. He seems carefully-disinterested, as if every move is balanced, and thought through before it’s made. Calculation rooted in every micro-movement…Dick can tell that whoever this is no idiot.</p>
<p>“I am Neron, of course. Wishweaver, Lord of Lies, King of Hate, Granter of Desires, etc, etc,” he says flippantly, waving Jason’s hand carelessly. “I go by many titles, Nightwing. But I assume you did not come here for my name.”</p>
<p>His eyes twinkle with some dark intent Dick doesn’t know how to decipher.</p>
<p>“Why, I’m not entirely sure why you <em>are</em> here. Most come here at my behest and summonings, but not you. You’ve come with that bastard mage who thinks himself remarkable and <em>without</em> my candle. It is most interesting.”</p>
<p>Neron’s green eyes narrow in on Dick, on the discomfort he’s sure is clear on his face, “Most prefer not to see me, for I am honesty they don’t really like. I show them things they wish to ignore.”</p>
<p>Dick’s always wondered what Jason would look like if he’d lived. He’s wondered if he’d be taller than Dick, or stay the short shrimp he’d always been. He’s wondered if Jason would be broad and bulky like Bruce, or lean and compact like Dick (even if Dick’s muscles are rather impressive if he does say so himself). Seeing Jason’s flesh draped over some other creature’s mannerisms twists something deep and ugly in Dick, like a painful slip of ice between ribs. It makes him feel…<em>hollow, </em>empty. Like he’s been robbed of something deep and essential.</p>
<p>This would all feel real were it not for the eyes. Jason’s eyes had been a dark cobalt blue, electric and glinting and so expressive it hurt. He’d been bad at concealing his emotions, but these eyes give away nothing.</p>
<p>Why Neron would conjure the image of Jason Todd, Dick can’t hazard a guess. What’s his motivation here? Power? Intimidation? Is it a move to throw Dick off? Keep him on his toes? Can he do that for <em>any</em> dead person or only those you know?</p>
<p>“You are confused,” Neron says loftily, smirking with Jason’s lips. “I wonder if you yourself know…”</p>
<p>“Know <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>Constantine gives a heavy sigh, covering his face with his hands like he can’t believe Dick’s asking that question. Dick doesn’t understand it. What’s so <em>clear</em> about this picture that he’s missing?</p>
<p>Neron’s smirk widens.</p>
<p>“I’ve felt this soul, you know,” Neuron starts, kicking his feet off of his throne and striding down towards the white pit beneath his throne. “Jason Peter Todd, the dead Robin. I felt him when he entered my domain, when he died in vain for a cold mother at a madman’s wills. I heard his cries as the crowbar sunk into his skin, felt his despair as he watched death count down and his mentor failed to save him…”</p>
<p>His hand skims the surface of the pit, sending ripples out as Dick watches. Images flicker in its depths, ones that seem blurry and grainy. There’s a smile, bleeding and crooked. There’s a clock, counting down and violently bright. There’s an R, gold and tainted.</p>
<p>The pit’s white ripples bleed a crimson red, shimmering as memories poison the pristine waters seemingly contained in the pit.</p>
<p>‘<em>It’s a soul,’</em> Dick thinks, staring at Neron’s lazy strokes of it. ‘<em>Jason’s soul.’</em></p>
<p>“Why…” Dick swallows, mouth dry. Constantine’s silent next to him, eyes narrowed in on the Lord of Lies. “Why do you look like my…like Jason?”</p>
<p>The pit wavers, bits of liquid life spilling over the sides. Neron waves his hand again and the pit looks as white as it had before.</p>
<p>“I’ve found self-exploration a useful endeavor, especially for mortals incapable of deep reflection. Why spoil the surprise? I get so little entertainment down here, after all, so few fresh <em>desires</em> that humans like yourself bring me. I do believe I asked you a question earlier, Richard Grayson. Are you so distracted by my form you cannot remember my inquiries? It’s impolite to be so absent-minded, regardless of my…<em>wills</em>…”</p>
<p>Dick flushes, frozen as the accusation sinks in. Jason had died three years ago, is it so strange that Dick wants to study the man he could be if they hadn’t failed him?</p>
<p>“<em>Enough,</em>” Constantine says firmly. “We came here to make a soddin’ deal, and you bloody well know what we want a deal for.”</p>
<p>Jason’s brow arches, eyes glinting.</p>
<p>“It’s so rare for a human to seek my…<em>services</em> without my candles or offers, John Constantine. Is it not understandable I might be a bit perplexed? When someone I have never sought a deal with has come to Hell, should I not be curious about what they’re willing to bargain? Is it not unusual that a…<em>hero</em> is so willing to deal with a demon lord such as myself?”</p>
<p>“You made my mentor a deal,” Dick cuts in. “You offered him a soul for a soul. His for Jason Todd’s. He told you no because he believes in the natural order, but I don’t agree.”</p>
<p>“You don’t?”</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.</p>
<p>“I’m here to make a deal, similar to the one you offered Bruce. A piece of my essence for Jason’s resurrection. No tricks, no plots, no gimmicks. Jason Todd resurrected how he would be if he had lived, and he owes you nothing. In exchange, you siphon part of my soul and it remains with you in Hell.”</p>
<p>“I’ve dealt with men like you, Richard Grayson,” Neron says, “I’ve dealt with men thinking themselves righteous when they’re just as crooked as those they condemn. You come to bargain for a soul in my possession, a <em>life</em> in my domain, and only offer a fragment of your own?”</p>
<p>“<em>Grayson…”</em> Constantine hisses under his breath, but Dick silences him with a look.</p>
<p>“Billy Batson gave you his soul, and you couldn’t keep it. Purity hurts you, <em>good intentions</em> hurt you, because you’re a creature born from selfish whims and desires. Stop me if I’m wrong, but you thrive in <em>corruption</em>, in exposing the selfishness of desires and making deals only you benefit from. You want souls to feed on, to gain power from, and the purer they are, the more there is to take. But that takes more pain, more suffering, because it’s not as easy to corrupt as an impure soul. Am I right?”</p>
<p>Jason’s lips thin, but he nods.</p>
<p>“You think your soul is pure? Pure enough for it to truly harm me?”</p>
<p>Dick looks at him intently.</p>
<p>“Only one way to find out. Do we have a deal?”</p>
<p>Neron hesitates, borrowed form stiff. For a moment, Dick thinks he’s going to say no, thinks that this will all be for nothing and he’ll have betrayed Bruce’s limited trust for little more than grief and ghosts that won’t leave him. The air is electrified, thick with indecision and Dick’s own nerves, and he can’t read any emotion in the glowing pools of black shadows narrowed on him.</p>
<p>But then, Jason’s body is in front of Dick, arm outstretched with a shark-like grin. Dick takes it, and hisses as black chains snake around their clasped hands. It burns, and it bleeds, and holy <em>fuck</em> his hand is on <em>fire</em>…</p>
<p>“We shall see,” Neron says, voice smooth like silk as the world loses meaning around him. Everything’s blurry, distorted, and it’s only the red-hot pain tying him to the Lord of Lies that lets him know anything is real at all.</p>
<p>“<em>Eius animum et cor ostende ac eius delicta et culpas ostende. Anima ex Richard John Grayson exorire et iudicare.”</em></p>
<p>“<em>Shit,”</em> Constantine curses somewhere to his right. “What the fuck are you doing, Neron? Why’s he glowing like that?”</p>
<p>Dick blinks at Constantine, bleary-eyed and dizzy with sensation.</p>
<p>“’M wha’?”</p>
<p>“Oh my,” Neron murmurs, “I can <em>feel</em> the power…the <em>purity…</em>just waiting for the right spark. Just waiting for the right <em>corruption</em>…”</p>
<p>The gold shimmer is blinding, encapsulating Dick. Everything glistens, and burns, and hurts. It’s pain…pain like he’s never felt.</p>
<p>“The <em>deal</em> you bloody liar!”</p>
<p>“Ah yes.” Jason smirks at him coldly. “Richard Grayson, in exchange for a sliver of your soul, I will return onto you the damned life of Jason Peter Todd. Do you accept these terms?”</p>
<p>“Yes…I…<em>accept</em>…” Every word hurts, every breath <em>hurts</em>. It’s a pain like everything he’s ever felt at once, an electric sizzle crackling along their linked hands and dancing up their arms, overwhelming, all-consuming…</p>
<p>“You will be condemning a part of your soul to Hell, to my kingdom. The depths of it, in fact. Eternal suffering on a mortal soul, incomprehensible pain and torture, some of which will resonate in your mortal coil. You can not go back on my deals, Richard Grayson, and the pain will be much worse than this. Are you prepared for that? Are you <em>willing</em> to make that sort of sacrifice for the failed Robin?”</p>
<p>There’s gold and pain, and then there’s burning green and anger. Jason Todd never failed, it was <em>they</em> who had failed him. The thought cements him, grounds him, and he pushes off Constantine’s hand and signals for him to stay put.</p>
<p>“He never failed,” Dick replies intently, staring at the face of a boy who’d never had a chance to live. He hates that that’s how Jason’s thought of, the way Bruce has <em>let</em> him be thought of: the <em>bad</em> Robin, the <em>disobedient</em> Robin. The soldier that went too far and the tale of woe for the new generation. Dick <em>hates</em> it, and pain…pain is nothing compared to hatred and anger. “You have a deal.”</p>
<p>There’s burning like a forest fire dancing across his skin, and green, green eyes glassy and haunted. There’s pain, and there’s the feeling of his heart being ripped from his chest, his organs being liquified and his consciousness floating just above his collapsing body. Then, there’s agony. The kind of agony he’s only heard described, the kind that makes him curl into a ball ripping at his hair while Constantine shouts somewhere in the background. It feels like a hundred tiny needles being shoved into his forearm, like some sort of sick branding Slade would want on him.</p>
<p>He screams, and he cries, and he bleeds, and then there’s a voice. A familiar voice, one he’s tortured himself with every bitter night choked with grief.</p>
<p>A voice he hears in the quiet serenity of night beneath two willow trees every April 27<sup>th</sup>, and in his nightmares every day since.</p>
<p>“What the <em>fuck</em> Richard—”</p>
<p>His arm glows and fades, and he thinks he sees ashes moving to form curving shapes…</p>
<p>And then, there’s nothing. Blissful darkness and numbness, and Dick’s too far gone to care.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Coming to life is a lot like wading through tumultuous Gotham Bay waters towards the surface – there’s that split second of panic, you’re achingly cold and freezing, and there’s that hit of dread-laced adrenaline, the fear of darkness closing in on you, and then you break through the surface and it’s warm and bright and <em>painful</em> in the sensations. It feels like a cross between Hell and Heaven; feels like everything and nothing all at once which makes <em>no fucking sense</em>, but also makes perfect sense.</p>
<p>And once the darkness clears, once the lights stream into his eyes, Dick Grayson in all his pretty boy perfection comes into view, and unlike the seamless, pristine version he’d hallucinated while dying, this one looks like shit and screams like a pig being slaughtered.</p>
<p>Blood streams down pale gold arms like waterfalls, but spiraling rather than streamlined. Ashes dance with the blood, burning a pattern into the spiral of Dick’s right forearm. His eyes are red and bloodshot like he hasn’t been sleeping, and his hair gives off that “freshly-fucked” look Jason has to use gel to get. Bruises peek out from Dick’s collar, some purpling and some a dark red.</p>
<p>Tears sparkle in Dick’s wide blues as Jason looks, pink mouth forming a soft ‘o’. He looks pained, and the ashes glow a dark, menacing red as he whimpers out something that sounds like Jason’s name. <em>Just </em>Jason’s name, softly, fondly, almost reverently.</p>
<p>It’s a way he’s never heard his name spoken, and it distracts him enough that he almost misses the blond in a trench coat cradling Dick as he shakes, knees buckling as Jason stares. He almost misses the thing that looks like him as a dominatrix wannabe, complete with skin-tight leather pants and a crown. The thing’s skin is pale and scarred with a deep y-incision across its bare chest. Jason's never seen anything like that before, except in the morgue with B at his side.</p>
<p>The thing wearing his face smirks at him, cold and calculated as Dick bites his lip hard enough to bleed, stifling screams Jason knows linger in his throat. And as the green in his eyes darkens, almost black as they narrow, it clicks, and everything burns as it falls into place.</p>
<p>He remembers the feeling of betrayal as Bruce fails to believe him, thinks he pushed the lowlife <em>scum</em> off the roof. He remembers the ache in his hollow little heart, feeling like the only person left to care doesn’t trust him. He remembers finding <em>her</em> name, jumping ship, and running to find a mother to care for a broken little street rat fresh from the gutter so when Bruce throws him out he won’t be alone (can’t kick you out if you leave, can he?). He remembers the warehouse, her cold and callous “<em>We had a deal!”</em> to a madman with lips painted in a bloody smile. He remembers that sinking in, remembers the feeling of his mother selling him to a murderous psychopath to save herself and the life she’d built. He remembers the feeling of a crowbar shattering his bones, one by one, “<em>Which hurts more? A or B? Forehand or Backhand?”</em>, the feeling of blood pooling in his mouth, and thinking, ‘<em>internal bleeding’</em> as the Joker throws him to his bound mother. He remembers feeling her shake in his arms, warm and terrified and even though she doesn’t care for him he feels guilty, guilty for dragging her into his mess.</p>
<p>When the ticking starts, when he stares at the red clock counting down, ‘<em>10…9…8…’</em> he remembers the knowledge that Bruce isn’t going to save him sinking in too. He remembers fingering the phone tucked in his belt, staring at Dick’s contact info, and thinking about the way ‘<em>Little </em>Wing’ rolls off his tongue. He remembers seeing Dick, through the blood and shakiness of his vision, in his down-to-the-navel suit designed to torture Jason with a soft smile. ‘<em>It’s okay,</em>’ he seems to say, eyes a little sad. Jason thinks that Dick <em>would</em> say something like that in a hallucination when Jason’s about to die. He remembers shielding his biological mother with his body as the bomb goes off, remembers feeling the bomb shards dig into his dying shell, bleeding and coughing as he aches. His mother lives, as far as Jason knows, but Jason didn’t. Batman hadn’t come for him, and he’d died thinking of Dick Grayson’s smile before he’d left for Tamaran with his team.</p>
<p>And that leaves him with two cold facts:</p>
<p>Jason Todd is dead, and it was the Joker that had killed him.</p>
<p>But he feels a pulse beneath his fingertips as he presses into his wrist. He feels warmth, and his skin feels itchy and dry. When he takes a deep breath, it’s shaky and painful, like splinters stabbing his lungs continuously, or the burn of a dozen or so cigarettes on a rooftop in downtown Gotham one by one ‘til the carton is empty. Jason can feel arousal when he looks at Dick for too long, eyes tracing kissed-in marks dark against that golden throat he’d spent many nights thinking about making.</p>
<p>Dead people aren’t warm. Dead people have no pulse. Dead people don’t get hard-ons for blue eyes.</p>
<p>So, Jason Todd is not dead, but he’d died.</p>
<p>“What the <em>fuck</em> Richard—”</p>
<p>Dick smiles, eyes fluttering shut and slumping unconscious in trench coat’s arms. Jason can’t say he likes the way the guy’s eyeing Dick, not at all.</p>
<p>“Neron, what the <em>bloody fuck</em> is wrong with him?”</p>
<p>Trench coat has an accent. Suddenly, it’s a lot more understandable why Dick is with him, if Dick <em>is</em> with him. Last Jason heard, Dick had been dating Kori and debating proposing, but he doesn’t know where or when he is, so that might not be a thing anymore.</p>
<p>Not-him’s lips stretch, flashing a hint of teeth that looks more like fangs. Jason wonders if he looks that creepy when he smiles. He <em>really</em> hopes he doesn’t.</p>
<p>“Richard’s delicious,” he says creepily, “I assume our…bargain is in effect now, and it is beginning to…<em>impact</em> him.”</p>
<p>“Woah woah woah,” Jason interjects, making a timeout gesture. “Can we just pause at ‘<em>bargain</em>?’ Last I checked I was fuckin’ dead, six feet under, all done-zo what with being blown up and beaten to death by a clown with a crowbar. How am I here? <em>Why</em> am I here? Where <em>is</em> here, exactly? Cause I gotta say, this theme? Not the best. Bit death metal, I-shop-at-Hot-Topic esque, if you know what I mean.”</p>
<p>It looks like something straight out of one of Bruce’s wet dreams, all black lines and red lights and ominous sounds. The kind of place that Jason pictures as Hell, when he thinks of it. A gothic throne above burning fields of screaming subjects, ashes dancing through the air like sparks from fireworks. It’s hot too, as hot as it had felt in that wooden death house, locked in with a fucking bomb and a mother who’d thrown him away like a finished crossword as he slowly bled to death. Guess he’d been doomed to die, even if Bruce <em>had</em> shown up before the bomb took care of his heartbeat he still would have bled to death. Not even the Batmobile is faster than death.</p>
<p>“Jason Peter Todd,” not-him greets with a hint of humor, like the fucker finds it funny they look the same. “You are in my kingdom, at Richard Grayson’s behest, and on my word, of course. You have been here since death, and would remain here eternally were it not for his dealings.”</p>
<p>Somehow, this explanation only leaves him with more questions, but before he can think to voice any of them, not-him is shrinking, broad muscles he doesn’t remember having leaning and toning into something more familiar, more lithe lines of power that have served him his ass several times he enjoyed just a bit too much. Not-him’s skin tans, turning into the pale gold shade slumped across from Jason (minus the blood).</p>
<p>Not-him, evidently, is a shape-shifter. Fucking great.</p>
<p>Suddenly, he looks like a healthier version of Dick, minus the gore and sleep-deprivation, plus a meal or two his Dick (not that Dick <em>is</em> his, exactly) had lost from what Jason can guess is stress. What had trench coat called him, again? Jason wonders. Knee-something?</p>
<p>“Who are you, exactly? I mean, I’ve been calling you not-me in my head since I undied, but now you don’t look like me. And calling you ‘Dildo’ seems a bit immature.”</p>
<p>Fake-Dick raises an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Dildo?”</p>
<p>Jason rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“You’re not Dick, so you’re a fake Dick. A dildo. You are a dildo. You <em>have</em> to know what one of those is.”</p>
<p>Dildo’s lips curl in displeasure.</p>
<p>“I don’t care for your kind’s jokes, Jason Todd. But the answer to your question is Neron, Wishweaver, Lord of Lies, King of Hate, Granter of Desires. I go by many titles.”</p>
<p>Jason cocks an eyebrow at him.</p>
<p>“Practice that in the mirror much?”</p>
<p>Neron’s lips thin.</p>
<p>“John Constantine,” Neron calls as trenchcoat lifts Dick into a bridal carry. “He will feel the pain soon, make no mistake. The mortal coil is not designed for Hell, nor the weight of two souls.”</p>
<p>Constantine glares at Neron.</p>
<p>“What did you do?”</p>
<p>Dick’s lips tick up in a smirk, so much colder than any he’s seen on his predecessor’s face. There’s no sparkle in those azure eyes, no light. It’s stone-cold.</p>
<p>“Exactly what he asked for. Nothing more, nothing less.”</p>
<p>“What the bloody <em>fuck</em> did you do?!”</p>
<p>Jason feels a tug, painful, like his blood’s acid, <em>boiling</em>, eating its way out through his skin. He hisses, dropping to one knee, but Neron merely turns those cold eyes on him with a flicker of amusement.</p>
<p>“Jason Todd’s soul returned onto one Richard Grayson. A deal for one at the cost of the other. It’s ancient magic, that is. One founded by Lucifer himself. That kind of magic has consequences, costs.”</p>
<p>“They’re <em>bound</em>?!”</p>
<p>“Richard Grayson is bound to Jason Todd, but Jason Todd is not bound to him. His soul has imprinted upon Richard’s already, you can see the attachment forming just beneath the skin.”</p>
<p>Jason curls in on himself, forearm burning, as Constantine lifts Dick’s limp arm into the hellfire’s glow. Darkened bands twist around it, gleaming and pristine as they meld with golden skin. But it’s less melding and more burning, festering and cutting like a parasite, crimson liquid bleeding around the edges uninhibited by Constantine’s glowing hands or muttered Latin, leaking down Dick’s arm like rain from a stormy sky. It always rains when things go to shit, Jason’s found. When his mom died, when <em>he</em> died, it had rained. It makes sense there’s rain down here, even if it comes in the form of Dick’s blood because fuck if this doesn’t hurt like a bitch.</p>
<p>The shape of a crowbar (Jason knows what that looks like all too well) is distinct, formed by a raised scar under Jason’s careful eyes. Dick goes limp once it settles, darkened metal lightening to something silver, glinting. <em>Familiar</em>. On the exposed skin of Dick’s bicep, he can just make out the tiny <em>J</em> carved into the damned thing. His cause of death, and the Joker’s favorite toy.</p>
<p>Jason hisses, but the pain settles down to something more tolerable as the blood magic voodoo shit stops, Neron’s gaze cool and pleased as he examines the markings. It stings more than it burns, a consistent flare of pinprick needles where the phantom scar lingers, aching in all the ways he’s sure echo the pain on Dick’s arm. A bond. The kind of bond Jason’s betting isn’t FDA approved (magic is basically a drug, shouldn’t someone be regulating that shit by now?) but it’s a bit too late to worry about that, given the whole he’s supposed to be <em>dead</em> thing and the they’re all sitting in Hell talking to Lucifer’s creepy cousin thing.</p>
<p>Neron dismisses them with a flick of his hand, back turned carelessly, unafraid of what they might do to him. He doesn’t really have a reason to be afraid, Jason reasons. Jason probably looks how he feels, and Constantine’s too busy caring for Dick to bother attacking Neron.</p>
<p>Jason shivers, feeling a cold chill despite the overwhelming heat from fumes he can’t see.</p>
<p>A recreation of the warehouse blowing up, designed to make him as uncomfortable as possible. How painfully unimaginative, he’d expected better from Hell. Doesn’t stop his heart from racing like a rabbit running from a fox, nor does it stop his lungs from choking on the toxic air, his skin from flaking off like ashes. He burns. He’s burning. But he’s in Hell, so that’s no surprise.</p>
<p>“C’mon,” Constantine says, arms tight around Dick’s dead-weight. “Zee’ll take us out, then we’ll have a peek at that arm.”</p>
<p>Jason peers at him suspiciously, cradling the arm he hadn’t noticed trembling.</p>
<p>“How do I know I can trust you?”</p>
<p>He can still taste the ashes of his own death on his tongue, after all. Trust is what had gotten him killed.</p>
<p>Trust, and a man he’d thought of as a father.</p>
<p>Constantine scoffs, adjusting Dick’s weight to grab a smoke out of a carton. He drags it against the throne room’s wall until it lights, and it’s the first thing Jason registers as real. The scent of sweet nicotine burning, hazy grey toxins leaking from the lit cigarette like magma in a volcano. He can’t trust the heat, can’t trust the way Neron’s cold blue eyes watch them with detached amusement, but he can trust Dick, and the memory of burning lungs after too many cigarettes in a row to stifle that painful rumble of hunger.</p>
<p>“You don’t,” Constantine says simply, muffled by the drag he takes. “But I promised this one I’d help him, so trust in that if nothing else.”</p>
<p>Jason nods, and when Constantine offers a hand, encased in gold spirals and letters he can’t make out, he takes it.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>When Dick wakes, the dark is overwhelming. A tidal wave of nothingness, the faint outlines of reality ebbing at what fraction of sanity he weakly tethers himself too. It’s dangerous, he thinks, to retreat so far inside his head. He’s not quite sure why he feels that way. It’s instinctive. Deep. As true as the sensation of freefall in brisk winter air, or the taste of strawberry lip gloss and sweat-laced skin between silk sheets.</p>
<p>It takes a moment for him to blink away the latent shadows, to clear his sleepy eyes of the nighttime haze in favor of viewing his surroundings, and he takes it in carefully, like a crime scene he’s trying to interpret. The blankets beneath him are soft and unfamiliar, golds and purples that are royal and grand and altogether reminiscent of Zatanna and Constantine, when his brain can make the connection. The outline of dark hair and a crooked nose reminds him of Jason, and as he drags his gaze down the outline backset against the darkened window, he sees that it <em>is</em> Jason.</p>
<p>He frowns, forcing himself to a sitting position and letting out a groan as his arm screams. It’s wrapped carefully in bandages, but Dick can feel the scar beneath it, the curving grooves of raised skin, dark with his blood and Jason’s pain. He doesn’t know how he feels about the bond yet. He hadn’t planned much beyond the whole bribing Neron into resurrecting Jason bit.</p>
<p>Jason startles at the noise Dick can’t bite back, bleary-eyed and sleep-rumpled as he straightens in the rocking chair carefully positioned in plain sight of Dick. Jason had been watching him sleep, he’d wager. He doesn’t know how to feel about that either.</p>
<p>“You’re awake,” Jason says, voice groggy. He rubs away what few dreams could have cropped up with the back of his hands, curling them into fists. He sets them on his lap after a minute hesitantly, awkwardly. This encounter has him as off-kilter as Dick.</p>
<p>They’d never been terribly good at talking around the Bruce-shaped issues lingering on the tediously constructed bridge built on pizza stacks and nicknames. Death hadn’t changed that, it appears. Dick sullenly wonders if anything will.</p>
<p>“I am.”</p>
<p>Jason yawns, stretching enough for his shirt to reveal a thin sliver of skin around his waist, lines of hard muscle that remind him more of Bruce than himself. He’s aged in death. Neron hadn’t returned the child doomed in a warehouse far from home; he’d given the man that boy was supposed to grow to be.</p>
<p>“Constantine said you’d be out for a lot longer than you were.”</p>
<p>“How long was I out?”</p>
<p>Jason frowns, glancing out the window. It’s dark out, darker still with the thick curtains obscuring the moon’s glow from view.</p>
<p>“Two days,” Jason answers after a pause. “In and out of consciousness, they had to do some sort of magic pain relief to…soothe the ache.”</p>
<p>“My arm?”</p>
<p>A nod, short and stilted. Jason tenses noticeably, as easy to read as ever. Or maybe Dick’s just perceptive. He’s never been clear on that.</p>
<p>“Do you…remember what Neron said?”</p>
<p>Dick cracks his neck, trying to ignore the surge of heat in his arm, the uncomfortable pinpricks of pain.</p>
<p>“Which part? He blabbed a <em>lot</em>.”</p>
<p>Jason sighs, pointedly looking anywhere but Dick.</p>
<p>“The last bit. The…<em>bond</em> bit.”</p>
<p>Memories flicker faintly as he blinks, hazed images that cross between reality and dreams, recollections and fabrications. He recalls the green flare of fire in Neron’s eyes, the smug lilt in his words, an undercurrent of danger and destruction in the things unspoken and lingering on that surely forked tongue. He recalls pain, his skin feeling flayed and severed, scarred and running in rivers of red and gold like souls bleeding into the skin, melding in a disharmonious union. Dick barely remembers the words, can barely recall anything other than sensations scented in copper and brimstone and fire, and the absent throb in his skin distracts him from pulling from anything deeper, seeking more detail.</p>
<p>“Vaguely,” he says, feeling the word <em>bond</em> again drift forth when he looks at his arm. “But I’m guessing it’s not good news?”</p>
<p>“Is it ever?”</p>
<p>Dick pushes the pain into a neat bin in his mind, discarding it mentally as he sits up enough to be in arm’s reach of Jason. His eyes flicker over Jason, taking in every new curve and development Jason’s ghost had lacked, like the brimming heat in Jason’s freshly green eyes, like the added height that means he’s probably (definitely) taller than Dick, like the bulk that sets him closer to Bruce than Dick in muscle mass. A tank. A <em>fucking</em> tank. Exactly like Neron had looked, minus the crown and smugness.</p>
<p>Dick reaches out slowly, letting Jason’s eyes analyze his movements and see them for what they are before touching him. His skin’s warm, when he cups Jason’s hand. Almost feverish in its heat, like life is an infection his body is adjusting to, combating eagerly. He doesn’t look like someone dragged from Hell. He looks like the man he should’ve been allowed to grow into.</p>
<p>Dick’s eyes brim with tears, he notices distantly, and he lets his fingers intertwine with Jason’s, lets the touch anchor him the way Zee’s had.</p>
<p>“You’re alive,” Dick whispers in awe, like a revelation of heaven rather than Hell. “You’re not…”</p>
<p>“A decaying corpse?” Jason’s lips tick upwards in a half-smirk, faint amusement sparking in his otherwise uncertain eyes. They’re both so hesitant, so uncertain, that it’s almost funny. Dick would probably laugh, if he weren’t so busy ignoring all the pressing concerns lingering in the background along with the pain. “I have you to thank, Goldie. Couldn’t let me have my dramatic exit, huh?”</p>
<p>“There’s enough drama queen in the family from Bruce without you making your bid for the crown, Little Wing.”</p>
<p>Jason snorts softly, free-hand reaching up to brush some of Dick’s sweaty hair from his forehead. Dick squints at him, nose wrinkled, trying to decipher the cloudy emotion lingering in Jason’s eyes. It’s not something he knows how to explain, or how to <em>verbalize</em>, but it sends warmth through him like a cup of Alfie’s hot chocolate after a long winter patrol. Dick flushes without meaning to, and Jason takes that as a signal to pull back a little.</p>
<p>Thankfully, their hands remain intertwined. It’s a physical anchor Dick needs, at the moment. Something tangible. Real. He hasn’t seen Jason’s specter since he’d made the choice to resurrect Jason, but he’s still so afraid of this all being a hallucination born out of grief; some delusion maintained to feel some semblance of relief. Ghosts and delusions and feverish fantasies aren’t solid or warm though, so he squeezes Jason’s hand with a contained smile.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” Dick asks quietly, soft enough that Jason has to lean closer to hear him.</p>
<p>“I’m alive.”</p>
<p>It’s not a yes, but it’s also not a no. Classic Bat-grade avoidance.</p>
<p>“You’re infuriating.”</p>
<p>Jason’s wry smirk makes a brief appearance before receding as some darker contemplation furrows his brow. Dick almost wants to roll his eyes; that’s a sign of an incoming lecture if he’s ever seen one.</p>
<p>“And <em>you</em> are reckless. Constantine told me what you gave up…for me. What you were willing to bargain. Dickie, what the hell were you thinkin’?”</p>
<p>Dick gives Jason’s hand another tight squeeze, knuckles a pale white. His bond-scar pulses once; a sign of approval.</p>
<p>“You were dead, Little Wing.” His voice cracks on <em>dead</em>, a few stray tears joining those that had already fallen. “You were just…<em>gone</em> and I…I missed you. <em>We</em> missed you. When I heard about Neron, it wasn’t a <em>choice</em>, Jay. My mind was made the second you coming back to life became a feasible plan. A little sliver of essence is a small price to pay for you. It’s a price I’d pay over and over again.”</p>
<p>“Reckless,” Jason murmurs, glowing green eyes shining with that same unreadable emotion.</p>
<p>“Worth it,” Dick counters.</p>
<p>Jason smiles again (it’s disarming how young it makes him seem) and looks like he’s about to say something when the door opens with a quiet shudder. Constantine leans in the doorway, an unlit cigarette between his lips and a dusty old book Dick recognizes from his apartment in his hands. His eyes dart to Jason and Dick’s still clasped hands with a glint of humor in them, and it makes Dick flush again, letting Jason’s hand fall to his side.</p>
<p>Jason’s smile vanishes, quick as it had come.</p>
<p>“Zee and I hit the books to sus out your sleeping beauty fit while you two conked out here. Seems it was the sum of spiritual drain on your chakras or some rubbish like that. Zee’s an ace at that kind of shite, so I’ll let her handle the explanations. She just wanted me to check on you, see if you woke up yet.”</p>
<p>“All parts accounted for,” Dick says cheerily.</p>
<p>Constantine cocks a brow at that, warm gaze sweeping over Dick shamelessly.</p>
<p>“I’ll say. Right fit even with pillow creases and drool.” He pauses, lips curving into a shit-eating grin when he glances over at Jason. “Todd can tell you all about how you looked while sleeping, I ‘spect. He didn’t leave your bloody side for a minute. Zee had to drag him out to get nosh.”</p>
<p>Jason’s jaw clenches.</p>
<p>“As you can see, Dick is awake. Mission accomplished.”</p>
<p>The blond offers a snort, tearing his gaze from Dick to meet Jason’s blazing eyes. Dick doesn’t see what’s communicated, but Constantine seems to; backing out the way he’d come, looking every bit the cat that got the canary.</p>
<p>“I’ll let our girl know. She’ll be right pleased. Get some more rest, pretty boy. You’ll need it.”</p>
<p>The door shuts quietly behind him after a parting wink, and Dick’s lids fall shut like window shutters before Jason can say anything else. Distantly, somewhere beyond souls and skin and heat, he feels a brush of lips on his forehead, an affectionate murmur. It reminds him of his mom’s kisses; offerings of comfort and good luck before every show.</p>
<p>It’s so fuzzy it could be imagined, lingering in the hazed realm between sleep and wake, but Dick falls asleep with a smile.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The "Eius animum et cor ostende ac eius delicta et culpas ostende. Anima ex Richard John Grayson exorire et iudicare" translates to "Show his soul and mind and/moreover show his failings and sins. Soul of Richard John Grayson, come forth and be judged."</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if you like this fic and want to support me + my writing feel free to check out my <a href="https://runnfromtheak.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>